Heart help close to hand

Doctors may one day measure blood pressure using an electronic
wrist device to better predict a patient's risk of heart attacks
and strokes if an Australian cardiologist's theory is right.

Michael O'Rourke, a senior researcher at Sydney's Victor Chang
Cardiac Research Institute, believes blood pressure in the large
arteries is the most precise measurement for stroke and heart
attack risk. Conventional blood pressure measuring devices -
sphygmomanometers using an inflated cuff around the upper arm - do
not give doctors an accurate assessment of aortic pressure near the
heart.

Professor O'Rourke has developed an electronic wrist device, the
SphygmoCor system, which can measure the aortic pressure. This
allows doctors to more accurately assess a person's risk of heart
attack and stroke, and to determine whether anti-hypertensive drugs
are having the desired effect, he said.

Doctors have long known that blood pressure differs between the
arm and the heart.